Steady and transient free convection of an electrically conducting fluid from a vertical plate in the presence of a magnetic field

Summary An analysis is made for the laminar free convection and heat transfer of a viscous electrically conducting fluid from a hot vertical plate in the case when the induced field is negligible compared to the imposed magnetic field. It is found that similar solutions for velocity and temperature exist when the imposed magnetic field (acting perpendicular to the plate) varies inversely as the fourth root of the distance from the lowest end of the plate. Explicit expressions for velocity, temperature, boundary layer thickness and Nusselt number are obtained and the effect of a magnetic field on them is studied. It is found that the effect of the magnetic field is to decrease the rate of heat transfer from the wall. In the second part, the method of characteristics is employed to obtain solutions of the time-dependent hydromagnetic free convection equations (hyperbolic) of momentum and energy put into integral form. The results yield the time required for the steady flow to be established, and the effect of the magnetic field on this time is studied.